So I have done some things deemed unconventional by my peers. To be honest I do many things that most people find strange. I wear the title “weird” like I was Superman and it was my god damned cape flapping in the wind. But curiosity is a hell of a thing. Mix that with a general distaste for the majority of people in the world and you have the recipe for a real nut job. Or so I am told.

I used to go to adult theaters to make myself feel better about myself. And by feel better about myself, I mean have a laugh at the degenerates at play. If you’ve never been inside one of these cesspools you will see a ton of atrocities that happen everyday. It’s amazing what grows in dark places. It’s a sense of life like you’ll never know. Almost any given day you can find normal people going in to not only score, but smoke crack. Not your typical junkie flair, but some asshole that looks like he walked off the set of Ozzie and Harriet. You’ll sometimes even find the wanton house wife or suburban mom wanting to unleash their slutty side and blow as many people as possible. It’s degradation at its finest. The whole time I watch the nightmare unfold. Only watching and never participating.

Then of course you have the obvious patrons. Gay and bi-curious men cruising, junkies shooting up, bums looking to just sleep in the aisles and prostitutes looking for johns. Every so often a construction worker comes in to drink a tall boy and beat off before returning to work. All this and more in a dark enclave that thousands pass by in a day. Never mind what is on the screen, the real show is in the audience.

There was this one particular time I went to this theater on my lunch break and there was this transvestite that was getting gang banged by pretty much the entire audience. I assume that this was his/her game plan. You had to at least admire or acknowledge the sense of freedom in all of this whether you agree with it or not. All caution to the wind with this sort of public display of carnality. It seemed as though everyone was in line to get at this piece of meat. Like a pack of coyotes on a lone desert hare. It was one of the more disgusting things I had ever witnessed. I be very clear that I was in no way sexually aroused. But I could not help and watch. Is this how Vlad Tepes felt when he ate under his dying victims.

I sat mesmerized by the fact that these men were engaging in a dance with a slow death. I laughed and entertained the notion that I had just watched several men from various walks of life commit suicide. It’s the closest thing to eating popcorn and watching Jonestown unfold. It was almost electric!

I had to wonder if this is the basis of humanity, a piece of ass, a hole to get your rocks off in. I left feeling like I had witnessed something that should not be seen. As if some darker god had shown me where the world was headed if he were to have his way. I laughed and thought to myself “All of you people are fucking dead!” And I went on with my day. I returned to my menial office job and wondered if any of my co workers who I could not stand were one of the many shadowed faces in that dog pile during their lunch break. I smiled and thought “Of course they were, of course”.

Never in my life did I think that seeing a bunch of kids drinking in the street would bother me. Mind you 15 years ago I was drinking on the same stoops.

When the city cracked down with their “Quality Of Life” campaign I was really bummed. There was a sort of class rift that came of it. The question in the back of many a citizen’s mind was “quality of life for whom?”. The simple and mildly illegal pleasures of the lower and working classes were gone. No more brown bagging your beer on a nice summer walk. No more drinking wine at Mostly Mozart in the park (unless of course you are in higher status) and no ice cold beer on the beach.

I can see why these enforcements came to be. I understood why they needed to be. But it was frustrating to watch things get revoked from the lower classes of the city and yet the upper classes were really allowed to do as they pleased.

Gentrification set in and pushed away the people who made these new frontiers what they were. The East Village and The Lower East Side are just shells of what they were. While they were always a party spot they have become the hip and happening party spots for the trust fund kids, the middle class hipsters and even the bridge and tunnel crowd. I never in a million years thought that Ludlow and Stanton would be the new Soho. I never had the foresight to think that Chinatown would elevate from dive bar status. Nor did I ever think that there would be velvet roped lines and guestlists on Ave. D.

So here I am 10 or more years later walking down a familiar strip where as a youth I spent many a night drinking on stoops. It’s 1am and once upon a time I’d at least see a few familiar faces, but instead it’s a sea of endless strangers. All drinking brazenly on the street. Large bottles of Asahi in the hands of youth where once a 22 oz. of malt liquor was the norm. But these young men and women are much different than the youth that paraded and littered this very strip. They are from good homes. Money is never an issue and more importantly, they are outside of the law.

A cop car cruises past and takes in the same visual. For a moment I had hopes that they would clean up the streets and get rid of this mess. Instead they stop a few feet down and make a homeless man vacate from the store front he was camping in front of. Probably a safe target seeing as he will never be able to afford a lawyer. I grab a coffee and plant my ass on a stoop I was once very familiar on and wish that someone would in fact do something about the quality of life around here and I laugh.

Some people assume that life is this routine in which go about daily. 2.5 kids, a salary, a home and a loving partner. It’s a time honored routine that has been established for generations: Work, marry & reproduce. Sheep have a similar life: Graze, reproduce & be slaughtered. But comparing the two seems harsh. See a sheep will bow it’s head to the axeman. It knows that it is done for. People are more like cattle, too stupid to know what’s coming.

I have to wonder some days, especially living in a major metropolitan area, if anyone out there is actually alive. In a sea of millions of people. All moving and breathing, and yet they just walk in line. Virtually grazing from one pasture to the next. I heard a saying once, “The best way to be certain that a man’s heart is still or not is to cut it out of his chest”. Is that what takes?

Similar to that, a former acquaintance and I used to say that nothing is more life affirming than an open wound. Usually this was said after a hard night of drinking and brawling. Sitting on a stoop somewhere with a 40 oz. of some sort of swill as we laugh at the damage we’ve taken. Sure getting cut and bashed in sucks. As does the walk of shame going to work with a black eye or the bridge of your nose split in two. But man, you gave it your all and you were in fact alive. One might even snicker as they tap the bruises to see if they were going away.

Maybe that’s why we cry at funerals or why arguments are rarely civil? It’s out of the norm. Our emotions run high. We get a taste of something life affirming. Be it good or bad, but it’s there. And maybe that knowledge is why we fuck up all the time. It’s our own forbidden fruit and it tastes so absolutely delicious. We are hooked on it and throw moderation to the curb like it was yesterday’s paper. Then there are moments where you kick the habit. I had a revelation once on how I am in fact getting older. And while mentally I may not mature ever, I do need to chill out. The drinking and violence and even the partying is great. And I may have lived for just that once. But the negatives that come with it will out last me and will always be more virile.

And that may be my open wound. The glory of what once was. I’ll still smile when I look at scars or chips in my teeth. What have you got?

As the new year unfolds, it seems to me, a rather stressful one. Now not all stress is bad stress. This is a fact. But it is stress none the less.

I can pretty much say that with a lot going on in my personal life, cracking a smile gets harder some days. However, this little gem has done a good job of bring some light to a dark situation.

It seems the good folk of Nestle’s have a hell of a sense of humor. If you call their hotline, 1 800 295 0051, and wait a few seconds after the options to hear things in English or Spanish. Do not press anything! You will get a wonderful language selection there after. If you can’t make it out then press 4. The best menu options in the world pop up. I won’t ruin the surprise for you. But I will say that I personally love option 7.

So thank you good folk of Nestle’s. Thank you for putting some light in an otherwise darker period in my life.